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Bush may bend on climate change

SENIOR government officials are confident that President George W Bush will sign up to a G8 statement on climate change at the summit in Scotland this week.

British officials say that although the US president is unlikely to commit to any tangible measures to clamp down on carbon emissions, he may agree to a communiqué declaring that the problem of climate change is a “reality” that must be addressed by the leading industrialised nations.

Sources close to meetings in London this weekend of “sherpas” — officials from all G8 countries — ahead of the summit, report that they are confident Bush will sign up to a “vague” statement of intention “because of his friendship” with Tony Blair.

However, they warned last night that there was still “a lot of work to be done” and feared that Jacques Chirac, the French president, could spoil the agreement by declaring that the Kyoto treaty on